The Spirit of Detroit stands in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building in Detroit on Thursday, July 18, 2013. / Romain Blanquart/Detroit Free Press

On Wednesday, the Free Press asked readers what the top priorities for Detroit’s next mayor, Mike Duggan, should be. Here’s what they had to say:

Turn on every streetlight immediately and install more. This alone would have people rejoicing. Have cops “walk a beat” on a regular basis. We need to see them to feel safer, and I don’t mean in squad cars. Choose your department heads now and have them ready to go in January. Care in doing this correctly will have a huge positive impact.

Joanne McNary, Detroit

Get city government to work properly. The problem has not been a lack of effort, but a lack of clear results. I didn’t agree with Mayor Coleman Young much of the time, but I respected him a great deal because he got things done. He had a plan that he thought benefited the citizens of the city, and by hell or high water, he was going to get it done. The top three priorities: Get the finances in order, downsize city government and get it working, and encourage and promote housing and small business in the neighborhoods. Do that, and everything else will follow.

William C. Plumpe, Detroit

Crime, job creation, curbside recycling and citywide blight.

Barbara Stevenson, Detroit

Choose effective leaders for the city departments and empower them. He needs to make city work for the citizens. The problems are obvious. The city needs tough, hardworking and creative leadership throughout the city administration to solve them.

William Lynch, Detroit

Crime, crime and crime.

B. Ellison, Detroit

Improve the neighborhoods. Expend as much of the city’s resources as possible to make Detroit neighborhoods livable again. Eliminate waste in the city government. Get the most value for every dollar of revenue collected.

John Morgan, Melvindale

Three things: Safety (crime), blight and education. My mother, a third-generation Detroiter, and the citizens of Detroit deserve much better.

Gayle Prather, Canton

Turn on the lights: I would like to have lights past New Center for my evening run. Rebuild the neighborhoods. At some point, I may want to leave my awesome apartment building and get a cute little home. I need a good neighborhood and a good school to send my hypothetical kids to. Public transportation: I may work for a car company, but I really don’t like to drive; give me dependable routes down Michigan, Woodward and Jefferson to start.

Tell the residents the truth. The truth is it will take time and sacrifice to improve Detroit. End the culture of blame. Yes, the rest of the state and the other local communities fears and dislikes Detroit, but we will overcome that by being successful and making progress. Utilize and feature the city’s resources: the riverfront, Belle Isle, airport, etc.

Mike Bauer, Commerce Township

Mass transit, living wage and community health care.

Precious Daniels, Detroit

More police, jobs and tearing down the blight.

Sonseeraye Bratton, Detroit

Though it’s overarching, I think The single most important item is restoring trust in government. This affects a number of things, but, for example, if cops don’t come when they are called, people stop reporting crimes. If people are sent a duplicate tax bill after paying the first, they are likely to stop paying in the future. If a streetlight is reported out, but the citizen gets no confirmation that the request was received, they will assume nobody cares. Detroiters have felt they are on their own for decades. There will be no progress unless residents and government are partners — and trust is a big part of that.

Alok Sharma, Detroit

Reduce property taxes, work with insurance companies to reduce car insurance rates in the city and make it easier to get any type of permit so that people and businesses will move back to the city.

Veronica Whitley, Detroit

Jobs: Get the people, especially the young people, working. Get retail development going downtown. Begin with an anchor like Macy’s. Get abandoned storefronts occupied, assist entrepreneurship.

Public Safety. No explanation needed. Transportation: Integrating DDOT into the RTA, and getting the Bus Rapid Transit and M1 Rail done should be a top priority. DDOT must also reinstate overnight service and I guarantee that if buses ran every 10 minutes and were on time, there would be no more attacks on bus drivers. Neighborhoods/ Quality of Life: He absolutely has to get his neighborhood initiatives off the ground, and get businesses to reinvest in all corners of the city.

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Jeremy Whiting, Detroit

Public safety. Public safety. Public safety. Turn around the perception of Detroit as unsafe, and you solve every problem we have.

Tim Miller, Detroit

Stay as connected to the community as he was during the election. Restructure city operations to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Impose accountability from the top down. These things will help address the top areas of concerns for Detroit (safety, lighting, blight).

Karen Dumas, Detroit

Make good on his promise to reassess all Detroit properties to better reflect their current market values. Get the bus system running well. Develop and start implementing a plan to revitalize neighborhood commercial districts. That will mean, among other things, reforming the permitting process to make opening business in the city less torturous.

James Melton, Detroit

Crime, education and jobs. In order for any city to thrive, those three things have to be taken care of; then you can attract new residents businesses and tourism.

Myron Lemon, Detroit

Determine viable uses for vacant land and homes in the city. Options must include how to help residents, not just commercial development. Employment: Bring real jobs to the city. Education: I know that the City does not run DPS, but maybe they can figure out how to partner with the schools.

Brendan Nolan, Detroit

Make sure first responders are adequately equipped and compensated. Accelerate the selling of the city’s surplus land/property to locals. Begin suing owners of blight to break those zombie properties out of the blight cycle and get them into the hands of good ownership.

Jon Zemke, Detroit

Grants for people to stabilize their homes. Too many low income folks are living in 100-plus-year-old houses that need a ton of work that they’ll never be able to afford to do. I’d like to see street by street evaluations and offers of assistance. The results would be at least threefold: stabilizing our historic built environment, keeping people in the homes they may otherwise abandon should the structures continue to degrade, and improving the appearance of the neighborhoods. Moreover, it would be an example of solid outreach and actual, physical improvements.

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Eric Criteser, Detroit

Bring in more jobs, and clean the city up, start demolishing the abandon houses all over the city and hire more police officers.

Sally Franklin, Syracuse

Crime, streetlights, and taxes.

Bryant, Detroit

Transform Detroit to be a tourist attraction city by bringing Disney theme park to Belle Isle Park & link it with the People Mover. This will make Detroit a major international tourist attraction city, will help un employment, safety problem & create a huge tax revenue base for the city. Make Detroit a Safer city. Demolish all a banded buildings. Solve the homeless by converting the closed schools into shelter place for homeless people. Support the small businesses that held the city together during the rough times.

Joe Nofar, Farmington Hills

Get crime under control. People can’t live and work with constant threats to their safety. Improve the business environment in neighborhoods to increase viable commercial enterprises. It will make neighborhoods more enticing and livable and add to the tax revenue to the city. Instill pride in neighborhoods. Start with safe, core business in each neighborhood — a bank, grocery, bakery, clinic, drug store, coffee shop, cleaners, etc. Eliminate blight and then do something with the land. Don’t let it become dumping grounds. Stop all the evaluations, plans and get action and implementation

Joan Gumbel, Detroit

Street lights, transportation, police response

Ron Rass, Gibraltar

Get a new form of city government in place so when EM leaves, he is ready. Get rid of blighted property in this city, it’s dirty and needs to be cleaned up. Police ,fire, and EMS need to be funded and up and running as well as all city departments accounted for and doing their jobs at city hall.

Frank Wood, Detroit

Help Orr clear the debt. Streamline city services. Shrink the city boundaries down to the financially viable core. If it doesn’t pay for itself, give it back to the county.

Jim Miller, Ann Arbor

Public safety and combating blight are most important tasks Duggan has ahead of him. But beyond that, as a resident of Dearborn, I have a specific hope for Duggan’s time in office: I would like to see Detroit work together with neighboring cities like the Grosse Pointes, Ferndale, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Eastpointe. In “border” communities, we have come to realize that as Detroit goes, so goes the region. We have a vested interest in the city’s recovery, and I'd like to see Duggan meet with public safety and community leaders in border communities to discuss ways that we can collaborate to fight crime, and bring business and residents back to our area.

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Jessica Carreras, Dearborn

Crime, Blight and Education! Getting a handle on these issues will improve the quality of life for the citizens in Detroit. Take care of these matters and everything else will fall into place. It takes an educated population available as a pool of candidates to fill jobs. Improve the adult literacy rate by partnering with the many colleges and universities that have set up shop in the city. The potential to make Detroit a better place is unlimited. It starts with those elected making the commitment to move forward and not let Detroit be defined by the things in its past.

Fixing the fact that 90% of murders in this city go unsolved. Be innovative in creating ways to keep native Detroiters in the city, particularly young families and college graduates. Reinstate residency requirements for the Police and Fire department.

Danielle Washington, Detroit

Crime, waste and public mass transit.

Mark Haaseth, Royal Oak

I think Mayor-elect Duggan’s three top priorities should be public safety, fixing DDOT, and modernizing city government in Detroit. The first two will go a long was in improving the lives of the current residents of the city as well as improving the attractiveness to people who may be considering moving back into Detroit. The last priority will help the business community in its dealings with the City making redevelopment less onerous.

Chris Wilcott, Edmonton, Canada

The overwhelming costs of auto insurance coupled with a horrible mass transit system. I have taken rides from a stranger in order to get to work on time.

Donna Pisey, Detroit

Economic opportunities for our young population, crime and blight. Without economic opportunities for the young adults, crime is a given. Every young adult citizen deserves to be able to support himself. Once there are more working young adults in our neighborhoods, many may wish to establish themselves there. Duggan spoke about salvageable properties, some of the better ones requiring less cash outlay for repairs could go into a pool for such a program, "Get a job, get a house", first time young home buyers.

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Johnnye Robinson, Detroit

My suggestion for top three not necessarily in this order are; New businesses, restoration of full emergency services and secure the pension funds.

Michael Abbott, Auburn Hills

Direct government incentives to the distressed areas instead of the strong ones so economic development can lead to job recovery and all that comes with it in those areas, e.g. increased consumerism, increased taxes, better education.

Laura Zacher, St. Louis

Develop a Neighborhoods Cabinet Director: The director should hire/engage sincere employees and volunteers who can attend neighborhood block clubs to help residents set clear and attainable goals/initiatives. Develop a plan to address blight: The plan should bring together the different non-profits already engaged in this effort and coordinate a city wide plan Partner with corporations and philanthropists: The goal of these partnerships should be to develop training curriculums for entry level positions that corporations feel they will need filled in the future.

Dan Jones, Redford

First, fire the consultants. For years, the water department paid millions to consultants to fix its meters to no avail. Second, recruit from the existing middle managers. They are the people who have had to find ways to get work done between crippling union rules and hamstringing administrative rules. nobody knows better what works and what doesn't work and what needs to change. Third, initiate a relentless campaign to cajole the state into restoring support to local communities.

Dennis L. Green, Farmington Hills

1) Convince City Council not to impede Kevin Orr’s efforts. 2) Work with the Police Chief Craig in any way possible. 3) Expedite permits by all who are eradicating blight.

Ben Earl, Bloomfield Hills

Everyone who drives on I-94 near I-75 knows what one major concern should be in Detroit — stinky garbage. The rotten odor hits everyone who drives or lives in this area. Yet, this is one problem with a simple solution. Instead of transporting garbage across the city to dump it at the incinerator, every household could take care of their own garbage by putting it in a backyard compost bin. Such bins can be good looking and cheap enough for the city to provide.